7

In bursts of collective emphasis, noise echoed, the Hôtel George V resounding, felt St-Cyr. To the staid seventeenth- and eighteenth-century decor, art deco pieces from the Boeuf sur le Toit’s former location on the rue du Colisée clashed, but no one else seemed to care. At 2120 hours and late for their meeting with Heinrich Ludin, there was still no sign of Hermann. He’d not been in the lobby as agreed. Merde, what was one to do? Walk among the crowded tables and ask or simply withdraw?

Waiters hustled the heavy trays or took away the empties, while thick on the air and emphasized by the half-light, the tobacco smoke had all but overwhelmed all other scents. Ackerland was on tap, Spaten Dunkel too, and Dortmunder Union, each glass or stein overflowing.

‘There’s even Einbeck Dunkel, Louis, and a Bock and Double Bock I’d recommend. The Führer may not like it that this brasserie of choice hasn’t been shut down as ordered, but he sure does know his boys like their beer. It’s flown in every day or sent by rail.’

‘Hermann …’

So popular had the Boeuf sur le Toit been to the avant-garde and Bohemian wealthy of the Roaring Twenties, its fame had spread and in the autumn of 1940 it had immediately been adopted by the Paris SD, SS and Gestapo.

‘You’re late,’ said Louis.

‘I was held up.’

‘Which table then?’

‘That one at the very back that has two empty chairs facing the life-size bronze nude from the former location.’

Svelte and on tiptoes with uplifted breasts, the nymph had one arm extended high above her to release a dove of peace.

‘The table with what look to be two Grosskotzkerls,’ said Hermann, ‘but don’t be fooled, not by those two.’

The big vomit boys, those who, like Reichsmarschall Göring, would eat and eat. Both sinister, and like him in that as well. ‘Berlin must have sent them.’

‘Kaltenbrunner, I think.’

‘God always frowns, Hermann, but our garde champêtre is taking the soup as if a last meal. Ah bon, he’s afraid of what I might well do to him.’

‘Just don’t mention the shoes.’

‘The what?’

‘The ones he wanted for Évangéline.’

She of the plunging neckline, radiantly beatific and licentious smile, and the drenchings of one of Lanvin’s latest.

‘It’s called Mon Péché,’ said Hermann.

And on a first-name basis with her too. ‘Me, I think I understand.’

‘You’d better.’

Uniforms were everything to the Occupier, no matter how humble the station, felt St-Cyr. To the basic Luftwaffe blue of these two had been added the stiff-collared walking-out white shirt, black tie and vest, all of which indicated that they were Göring’s. One even wore the Deutsche Jägerschaft badge of the hunting association and medals to prove deer had been shot and killed at exceptional range, the other no doubt fiercely jealous. Both, however, wore the party’s golden badge of honour and red armband with white circle and gold-lined black swastika, indicating that Hitler also had a definite claim to them.

‘Uniforms tell you only so much, Louis. They may even hate each other.’

Party functionaries and dyed-in-the-wool Nazis.

Neither bothered to even look up from the oysters in the half, the pâté, bread and wine. Indeed only Rocheleau seemed to have noticed their arrival and that of his wife. Having dropped his spoon and splashed his uniform, he had knocked over the glass of the red, which was now finding its way to his trousers. ‘Évangéline …’

‘Eugène, mon cher, mon brave.’

Kisses of repentance were necessary—was it really repentance? wondered St-Cyr. Joyously the woman trailed trembling hands over that husband of hers while Ludin, having quickly downed yet another shot of the stomach bitters, gazed leadenly at them and said, ‘Sit,’ but in Deutsch, of course.

It was Hermann who dragged from his coat pockets a pair of shoes to ask, ‘Would these be what you’re looking for, Kriminalrat?’

‘Eugène, mon cher, they’re a little tight but it was wonderful of you to have risked so much for me, the young girl you married fifteen years, seven months and four days ago.’

‘Those … Those, they are …’

‘Beautiful and me, I would love to have them anyway. Dancing will loosen them up. Dancing in Paris, Eugène.’

‘It’s not allowed. It’s against the law.’

‘But there are lots of places where it does happen. French musicians and their ensembles play nothing but the latest tunes. Hermann took me to one. “Douce Georgette” is by Joseph Reinhardt and his ensemble, but Hermann, he says the piece, it is really called “Sweet Georgia Brown.” “Irene,” it is terrific, too, and very dreamy. André Ekyan and his ensemble do it marvellously. “Palm Beach” as well, and Monsieur Hubert Rostaing’s clarinet, it is just as good as Monsieur Benny Goodman’s in the “Saint Louis Blues” or was it “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes”? No, that one was Tommy Dorsey and his orchestra. A trombone, I think.’

Hermann loved to dance and listen to the Voice of America whenever possible, and he did like such music as did those ensembles, and of course they played in clubs and bars and even held outdoor concerts the Occupier also loved, though all of it was verboten.

‘Tell the slut to shut up,’ said Ludin to the husband who was now trying to claim the shoes he’d found had been of a darker shade.

‘Eugène, mon cher, they are exactly the ones you told me of. The imprint, it says so. Hanan, wasn’t it? Hanan of New York, at 43 avenue de l’Opéra.’

And no longer there since the Führer in his wisdom had declared war on the Americans on 4 December 1941.

‘Are those the shoes?’ grunted Ludin, clutching at a spasm that must have wrenched his gut.

‘What else would they be,’ said Louis in Deutsch, ‘since they came from my coat pockets and we save everything we can from every case we have to investigate and this one, if I must remind you, is still very much a murder inquiry and not some circus.’

‘Rocheleau, you idiot,’ said Ludin, ‘take that slut and get her out of here. Go home to where you belong.’

Somehow they understood.

‘But first a little visit,’ said the master of ceremonies, tucking three or four big ones into the woman’s hand, she giving him a kiss on the cheek and the playfully lingering touch of her tongue.

Ludin lost all patience. ‘These gentlemen have come all the way from Berlin to talk to you, Kohler, so you had damned well better listen.’

Blitheness was called for. ‘And are they aware that you’ve a Spitzel aboard that gazo, one whose presence you’ve already advertised enough without having them come all that way?’

‘One that may well need your help, is it, Kohler?’

‘Hermann, let’s hear what they have to say when they’ve finished eating.’

Unknown to her, for sure, Anna-Marie had just brought down the wrath of the Reich on them, felt Kohler, and reaching for the empty bottles, held two up for one of the waiters.

‘Ah, the Châteauneuf-du-Pape, the 1921, Hermann. Of course, neither Herr Ludin nor these gentlemen could have known that after the Great War, the market was flooded by fake bottles of it, so much so that Baron Pierre le Roy de Boiseaumarie led a campaign to safeguard the name and his own. Ask for the Châtau Latour. Any year you like, but let’s drink a toast to their health.’

And to that of Anna-Marie Vermeulen.

Frans was in the room and at the bed. He had given her an hour and a half to get to sleep and was now going through her pockets to find that coin and her papers. He had to know the name she was using in Paris.

Unable to find either, she heard him draw in an exasperated breath and then gingerly slide a hand under her pillow and her head. There … there … have you found them now, Frans? Have you?

Quickly leaving, he softly eased the door closed, but now if they did manage to get into Paris, she would have to make him follow her, for only then could Étienne, Arie and Martine be saved, since he must tell no one else anything until he had been forced to tell the right ones everything.

To the Boeuf sur le Toit, felt St-Cyr, there was nothing but increased noise and laughter, to this table with its two visitors from Berlin and Heinrich Ludin, but the desperate. All three seemed to be waiting for something or someone. Hermann had explained their having followed that truck’s route to its link-up with the bank van and murders, but Ludin, sour and troubled as always, had been far from satisfied, the others simply belligerent.

‘Eine Halbjüdin?’ swore Ulrich Frensel. ‘Eine Mischlinge, Kohler?’ Angrily, he stabbed an already loaded fork into the braised red cabbage that accompanied the roast pork and potatoes he’d been devouring. ‘Are you and that verfluchte Franzose telling me that you know nothing useful yet and are letting a verdammte Hure get the better of a person such as myself? Die Schlampe will be stripped naked, I tell you! Naked, Kohler!’ He jerked a butcher-size thumb back to indicate the bronze behind him. ‘All questions will be answered. If not, I will personally see that she shits through her nose.’

Liebe Zeit, was he about to have a heart attack? wondered St-Cyr. Red in the normally florid and fleshy cheeks with double chin and brew-master nose, Frensel knuckle-wiped the Führer-like moustache that went with the haircut before lowering that fist to stab the fork in again.

‘The black diamonds, Kohler,’ seethed the other one, slab-faced and dark-eyed, and with the boeuf bourguignon and side dishes of caramelized onions and braised chestnuts. ‘She knows where they are, I tell you! That filthy Schweinhund Meyerhof told her. That is why we had to let her run. That is why this Sonderkommando!’

And wouldn’t you know it, thought Kohler, the myth of the so-called black diamonds, and both of these two from Berlin in on it but hating each other.

‘Ach, this other one is Johannes Uhl, Louis, and none other than the person who almost single-handedly during the Blitzkrieg captured 940,000 carats of rough industrials, so pleasing the Führer that he …’

A long-fingered, agitated fork-hand was acidly raised for silence, sauce dribbling. ‘Bitte, mein Lieber. Bitte. There were an additional 290,000 carats of Congo cubes and other industrials I personally took off Belgian vessels in Antwerp’s harbour. The Führer …’

‘Was ecstatic, Louis, and gave him this medal and a photo spread in Signal.’*

Having leaned over the clutter, Hermann pressed a forefinger to one of the awards, and turning away as if to ignore it, said to the other visitor, ‘And you must be in charge of gem diamonds. Herr Uhl of the industrials is from Frankfurt, Louis, where on the day we started this investigation, the RAF and USAAF did a round-the-clock, levelling a good part of the city and leaving more than 500 dead.

‘Herr Frensel, is from Münster where, on 6 July 1941, and in three nights, that same RAF flattened a good quarter of the city, so like our Kriminalrat, they both have that added reason for wanting us to solve this mess they’ve created.’

Shock brought silence and then from Ludin, not looking up from the vichyssoise that had finally been set before him, ‘As does Reichssicherheitschef Kaltenbrunner, Kohler.’

There could be no smile, felt Frensel. Instead, he would simply spear a chunk of pork and offer it to this verfluchte Kripo who was nothing but trouble. ‘In Berlin, mein Lieber, though a million have been evacuated, we who are left still pray for the zoo to be hit. Lion testicles in a sauce perhaps, or elephant teats in their cream—it’s said to be very rich. Some maintain that the giraffe will be stringy and must be tenderized by pounding as we do the war bread we are now having to eat with the turnips instead of potatoes; others that when plucked, stuffed and roasted, the ostrich will be a bit gamey, but a meal to walk on its legs. I believe, and you can correct me if I am wrong which I seldom am, St-Cyr, but didn’t the population of Paris eat their zoo animals during the Franco-Prussian War we most certainly won?’

‘The boa constrictors were said to be tasty. Grand-mère always swore that her portion was exquisite, like eel served with mustard, so, too, the Indian cobra, but fortunately without the poison sacks.’

Ach, gut, he had finally got their attention, thought Frensel. ‘I, too, have received such a medal and commendation—five of them to be precise. In the Netherlands alone, Kohler, and well after having relieved those diamond firms and traders of all they said they had, you understand, I took from those held for transit at Westerbork and Vught more than 250 million guilders of gem diamonds.’

Even at 10 guilders to the pound sterling, that was still 25 million pounds and Louis would have figured it out too.

‘Or at 4.4 American dollars to the pound, Hermann, about 110 million dollars or roughly now on the black bourse, at let’s say 100 French francs to the dollar, 11 billion francs.’

‘And more than enough, eh, to pay the Reich the 500 million a day they are now demanding in reparations, which are then, of course, immediately used to buy up all the loose diamonds and other things on offer.’

‘You’d be surprised where some of those Schweinhunde thought to hide such things,’ said Frensel, ripping off a chunk of baguette to mop up juices. ‘A specimen of no name, but bare and bent over the table, had 187 carats up the one and 356 up the other, and both coming out her eyes.’

Oona and Giselle were at the mercy of such, Chantal and Muriel, too, and Gabi but neither Louis nor himself could dwell on this. They had to push these two and Ludin to get what they could before it was too late. ‘And you’ve been keeping the traders in Lisbon, Madrid and Zurich happy, have you?’ he asked Frensel.

The laugh was rich and full, felt St-Cyr, for Reichsmarschall Göring had insisted on fencing such stones, the Reich desperately needing foreign exchange and gold, since few, if any, countries would accept Reichsmark. ‘Tungsten from Portugal and Spain, Hermann. Watches, microscopes and other precision instruments from the Swiss. Ball bearings, too, and machine tools.’

‘Guns, Louis, even those on the Messerschmitt ME 109s that fired the cannon shells Oona and her husband and children had to dodge during the exodus. But the Swiss do need our coal to keep warm and to run things, so fair’s fair and we’d better not question the matter.’

‘Wolframite, Kohler,’ said Johannes Uhl, sucking on a tooth.

‘The name tungsten goes by,’ said Frensel, stabbing a potato to slice off a morsel to add to the cabbage. ‘Tungsten carbide is next to diamond in hardness and it, and its steels, if I may say so, are fast replacing many of the uses of industrial diamonds and putting certain people out of work. Grinding powders, Kohler. Grinding wheels, too, and wire-drawing dies. All formerly done by using industrial diamonds. I personally have it on the best of authority—the Reichsmarschall himself, you understand—that the Luftwaffe are having great success with tungsten-carbide, armour-piercing shells. Instantly they destroy the Russian T-34 tanks, making the Soviets shit themselves.’

‘But … but there isn’t nearly enough of it,’ interjected Uhl, lifting the spoon he had taken to using on the sauce. ‘The supply is vastly limited and the cost astronomical, especially when smuggled into France and shipped to the Reich. Wolframite concentrate’s price just keeps shooting up and up and now fetches more than 130,000 Swiss francs a tonne, so the industrial diamonds I attend to still have a very definite place in our war industries.’

‘An iron, manganese tungstate, Hermann, containing the industry-accepted sixty percent tungsten oxide. The British own some of the mines in those supposedly neutral countries of Spain and Portugal, and as a result it often has to be carried in sacks on the back and sometimes across not one but two borders at night and in the rain if lucky.’

‘Or if you wish it,’ went on Uhl, ‘28,886 American dollars, so you can, I trust, understand why the Reichsmarschall, who is also my friend and superior officer, requires what that girl knows and is carrying.’

And yet more information, felt St-Cyr, knowing Hermann would have felt the same.

Timidly dipping a crust into the vichyssoise, Ludin thought to sample it. Instead, he reached for the bitters and said, ‘Josef Meyerhof also gave her, and this we know, Kohler, his family’s life diamonds.’

He having had to cough up the information probably. ‘And knowing this, even though you and that no-name SD colonel had a Spitzel aboard who left dribbles of coins for you to follow, you let her leave Amsterdam?’

‘We had to wait until Meyerhof’s contact person was finished dealing with her,’ said Ludin.

‘But by then she was already on her way?’

‘In a stolen Wehrmacht truck, but this we did not learn of until later.’

‘And in another note left for you by that Spitzel?’

‘The first such note, yes, but one that I didn’t leave with the coins for that Jew-lover Oona of yours to find.’

‘Louis, that’s why all the so-called secrecy. That’s why it hasn’t kept Rudy de Mérode and his gang from trying to follow us everywhere we go. That was Sergei Lebeznikov who just ducked into the kitchens, wasn’t it?’

After having had a good look at who had come all the way from Berlin. ‘He’ll be asking the waiters if anything further can be added to what he has already discovered, Hermann.’

‘They and the other gestapistes français must be wanting a share, or maybe even all of it if they can get to her first.’

Lenz and Mérode could well be useful, thought Ludin. ‘Meyerhof was director of the Amsterdam protection committee, Kohler. As such, he had the names and locations of all those they had blacklisted for selling to the Reich. He also made frequent trips to Paris before and even right up to and into the Blitzkrieg, so would have had plenty of opportunity to illegally bring diamonds here to hide.’

‘Thousands and thousands of carats, Kohler. Gems—industrials, too, of course,’ said Frensel, having shoved his plates aside to rest forearms on the table, hands clasped tightly. Big hands, swastika knuckle-dusters in gold too.

‘Millions,’ said Uhl. ‘I personally have uncovered the lies in the record books of all such firms. Each paper of high quality industrials, each packet or cloth bag, was to have been weighed and recorded, you understand, but many were not and I have recovered thousands they attempted to hide from me.’

Taking out a silver toothpick, Frensel went to work as he said, ‘As I have myself, Kohler. Those diamond Jews were a close lot. All decisions were done in committee and no one else was ever allowed in, but no longer, of course. Now we have put a stop to it and to them.’

‘There was a handkerchief,’ said Ludin, having shoved the soup aside. ‘A bit of childhood embroidery. This has not been mentioned, Kohler. Why is that, please?’

Rocheleau must have told him everything and some. Dismayed by the request, Louis had begun to fish about in his coat pockets. Laying the empty cartridge casings on the table, he then found the slugs only to go back for more.

‘Ach, I have it, Chief,’ said Kohler. ‘It was drenched and I simply shoved it away. Perfume, but I can’t tell which. Maybe you can.’

And a ‘breather,’ as the Americans used to say in that other war. ‘It’s called Sleeping, Hermann. It’s one of Schiaparelli’s. Very delicate, very feminine, and indicative of its user but not as decisively so as Molinelle’s No. 29 or Muriel’s Mirage.’

‘But will it help to lead us to her if she does manage to get past the controls and into Paris?’

‘Ah, one never knows, does one, mon vieux?’ said Louis, quickly­ pocketing it. ‘Even the smallest of things can open up an investigation. One tries. One simply never gives up and it is, after all this talk of diamonds, still very much a murder investigation. Gestapo Boemelburg has ordered us to find the killer of those two bank employees, meine Herren, Osias Pharand as well.’

‘My boss and his,’ said Hermann. ‘Herr Uhl, to give us some idea of what is really involved, what’s the current price of the lowest grade of industrial diamond?’

And on the schwarzer Markt where all such things were bought and sold. ‘Boart is at 450 guilders a carat, having gone up from three in the summer of 1940 and just before the Blitzkrieg.’

‘So in round figures a kilo would be worth what?’ asked Hermann.

‘In Reichskassenscheine about 2.25 million,’ said Uhl.

The Occupation marks, and at twenty to one in France, about 45 million francs, or 1 million dollars or 225,000 pounds sterling.

‘She was a borderline sorter, Kohler,’ said Ludin, ‘and will not only know of the value but which stones are roughly equal, either as gems or industrials.’

‘A half-and-half sorting out those that are half-and-half, Louis. Either one or the other.’

‘Ah here, at last, is Standartenführer Gerhard Kleiber,’ said Uhl, jumping to his feet to raise an arm in salute.

‘Who?’ exclaimed Hermann.

‘Exactly,’ said Frensel, having also leaped up to salute.

‘And the one, Louis, from the Warsaw ghetto uprising of April and May. The one who, under Brigadeführer Jürgen Stroop, who thought it would be all over in a day or two and not three weeks, volunteered to flush the last of the recalcitrants from the sewers.’

Kleiber didn’t waste time or words. In rain-spattered cap and open grey topcoat, with Iron Cross First Class at the throat, Close-Combat Clasp in gold on the chest and silver Wound Badge for three or four, he slapped a letter down in front of Hermann and said, ‘Read it to that “partner” of yours.’

Verdammt! felt Kohler. Lebeznikov was watching from the kitchen doors. Kaltenbrunner had signed and dated the letter, and had furiously stamped it with everything the Reichssicherheitshauptamt­ had including, in red wax, his signet ring. ‘Flown in from Berlin, Louis. It seems we’re now members of this Sonderkommando and are to be made a party to all of its secrets. If anyone, including that one who has just vanished out the back door of the kitchen, should try to horn in on things and stop us, all we have to do is show them this.’

Tree-lined and pleasant in the morning’s growing light, with mist rising off the nearby Seine, the turning leaves of the avenue Foch gave impressionistic touches to those of the Bois de Boulogne. Behind the wheel for a change, St-Cyr told himself they should see it as it once was. After all, it could well be their last time.

Funnelled by the wide and beautiful avenue, the view rose gradually and magnificently to the more distant, wooded hills of the Fort Mont-Valérien, in Suresnes, and those of the suburb of Saint-Cloud. ‘October is surely Paris’s month, Hermann. Haussmann, as you can see, must have had this in mind when he laid out the avenue in 1854. A triumph, isn’t it?’

‘That fort’s the main execution ground and those woods around it hide the hurriedly dumped corpses of far too many, as you well know, so please don’t forget it. This summons has to mean trouble.’

Hermann had had a bad night. ‘Maman was not overly tall, nor was Grand-mère. Their feet never extended beyond the foot of that bed, nor have my own.’

At 0646 the old time, 0846 the new, had come the fist-pounding­, at 3 Rue Laurence-Savart in the 20th. It was now 0859 hours, Monday, 4 October.

Number eighty-four didn’t hold the office of Brigadeführer und Generalmajor der Polizei/Höherer SS und Polizeiführer of France Karl Oberg, the butcher of Poland. That was at number seventy-two, but number eighty-four was also on the north side and just before the boulevard Lannes and the place Dauphine.* Though there was but a scattering of cars, all of the Occupier, one ancient hackney gave momentary thoughts of the belle époque whose sumptuous mansions these houses had once been, the street internationally famous. Indeed, the Palais Rose was at number fifty.

‘Stop daydreaming!’ said Hermann, longing for a fag.

‘Ach, Inspektor, had you taken the time to notice, you would have seen that the Standartenführer’s temporary office is on the second floor.’

‘That was him at the windows holding a Schmeisser and satchel­ of ammo while watching for us, was it?’

‘Death in the offing by piano wire, is it, for having kept things from him and Herr Ludin?’

The office was in what had once been the billiards and smoking room. Firmly pressing a nicotine-stained forefinger down on the green baize and on Queen Wilhelmina’s head, a disgruntled Kriminalrat shoved a coin toward them.

‘When and where?’ managed Kohler, picking it up and passing it to Louis.

‘The Porte de Versailles at 0810,’ said Kleiber, watching them closely.

Three of Bolduc’s bank vans also used that entrance, as did a certain Werner Dillmann. ‘But not arrested?’

‘Half the load in payment as usual, I gather,’ said Kleiber.

‘The coin having been slipped to some trustworthy who was told to bring it here?’

‘And now, since I have already had the safehouse where she is surrounded, you will soon see how things are done.’

From the avenue Foch to the Gare de l’Est was not far with the colonel at the wheel of his tourer. Serving northeastern France, Belgium, the Netherlands and beyond, there was constant activity: Wehrmacht trucks and men in plenty with duffel bags and rucksacks, staff cars, too, and gazogènes, buses, horse-drawn wagons, vélos and vélo-taxis and plenty of citizens with suitcases, some even with sacks of potatoes. To the west of the station, St-Cyr knew that along the nearby rue du Faubourg Saint-Denis were shops, cafés and restaurants; to the east, where they were now heading, wholesale garment works, haberdasheries and hosiers, and once off the rue du Faubourg Saint-Martin, rag dealers, stamp mills, machine shops and such.

A captain, an SS Haupsturmführer, crashed his heels together and gave the salute. ‘All secured as ordered, Sturmbannführer. Those to be interrogated, waiting.’

The fool, felt Kohler. Under guard and down the street a little were gathered eighty or so from the surrounding flats and ateliers, all of them justifiably enraged and miserable.

The courtyard of 22 rue du Terrage was long and narrow and well chosen, the cheek-by-jowl houses and ateliers on either side of a ground floor and one storey, but a labyrinth. Broken shutters were above the door to a former stable into which that passeur’s truck would have been hastily tucked. Outside a carpenter’s tin-plated atelier and home, salvaged lumber stood waiting. Old windows being refurbished were next to a glazier’s, metal-work outside another. Bricks in front of a mason’s, prevented anyone from easily stealing a chained cement mixer with two flats. Downspouts, electrical cables and wires seemed everywhere, even two old dogs that sensed that things were not quite right and had hidden under a broken bench.

‘Totally of the people, Hermann, and not a soul now but ourselves.’

Only at the far end was there any sign of tidiness in flaking paint and bricks that climbed to faded, lace curtains. The courtyard’s cast-iron communal tap constantly dripped. Laundry had been strung but could no longer be watched, and to the scent of leather tanning on the Quai de Valmy, came the not-too-distant pounding of a stamp mill.

‘A “safehouse,” Hermann, the Standartenführer having announced our presence well beforehand.’

All exits sealed. ‘But safe for whom?’

‘In April, our informant told us of this house, in July, of yet another,’ said Kleiber. ‘Both have been dealt with.’

‘There isn’t anyone here, Colonel,’ said Hermann. ‘The instant those trucks and cars of yours careened into the district, word shot out and the ones we want vanished. Ach, this is the tenth, mein Lieber. Belleville and Ménilmontant are nearby, La Villette, the largest of the city’s abattoirs, but a little to the north.’

The steps were worn, the staircase narrow, the smells as would be expected, felt St-Cyr. Even the concierge, old, miserable and demanding to be left alone, knew little beyond that the owner was still in the south, in the former zone libre and that the rent had been paid month by month without question.

‘The tenants they came in their truck and they left. Last April it was, the twenty-fourth I think and staying but till the Sunday, or was it the Monday? The memory, you understand. Bien sûr, they had items to sell—everyone does these days but me, who am I to question a good tenant when so many try to dodge the rent and wear out the legs, the lungs and the patience? Labrie … yes, yes, that was the name. Étienne, I think, but will have it written down, since that is the law in these parts, and I would remind you, monsieur, that a magistrate’s order is required before anyone searches anything, even one such as yourself!’

It was the same at 34 rue de la Goute-d’Or in the 18th, a deep courtyard with many ateliers, the staircases leading down from the flats above and all lettered through the alphabet. ‘Clearly our Schmuggler has used another safe house, Colonel,’ said St-Cyr, ‘but what is not so clear is why your Spitzel chose not to tell you of it.’

‘Maybe he’s had a change of plan,’ said Hermann.

Frans was onto her; Frans was sticking close, felt Anna-Marie. Having let him steal that coin and her false papers, she had deliberately put herself at his mercy so that he would know he could follow at will because that was the way Frans was. Arrogant, domineering, very sure of himself, flip too, of course, and hopefully overconfident. But what she hadn’t anticipated was that he would have needed a ready excuse to leave the others: her papers. ‘Forgotten,’ he’d have said, ‘left behind in the rush to get away.’

Étienne had been firm. No one was to have left the house at 3 rue Vercingétorix until all was clear and he had checked things with the concierge. Arie had taken a bike from the truck and had asked if its saddle was at the right height and she hadn’t waited­, had simply hopped on and ridden down the courtyard and out onto the street. Now she pedalled like the damned, but she couldn’t, mustn’t lose Frans.

The rue Froidevaux ran alongside the Cimètiere du Montparnasse whose gates were now open. Flowers for the dead were on offer as usual, the Occupier lined up for a look at the famous. At place Denfert-Rochereau, the traffic was insane. Bicycles were everywhere and of all types, pedestrians too, for without the cars and trucks, people simply cut across the streets whenever they felt like it, bells ringing madly. But on the boulevard Arago, though still busy, the cumulative sound dropped off—fewer shops and smaller line-ups, more single pedestrians, the Café de la Santé always busy: flics, guards, Gestapo, SS and gestapistes français. Made to hold 200, the prison held more than 1,500, but she wouldn’t look back to see if Frans was still there. She had to trust he would, had to appear as if taking her life in her hands by being so desperate as to ride along this street on a bike that didn’t even have a Paris licence, because that was what Frans had to think.

Heading up the rue de la Santé, brought her to the boulevard de Port-Royal and Val de Grâce, the military hospital. Tempted to use it as a means of appearing to escape, the thought to turn up the rue Saint-Jacques came but she would continue on to the avenue Denfert-Rochereau. Severe, walled in by wood, brick and stone, that street gave no chance to look back or escape. Priests, nuns and the wealthy lived behind tall, often solid gates. Only when across the Île de la Cité and just to the east of Les Halles did she finally chance a look. A mountain of empty wine barrels was perched on a wagon whose horse was so thin it looked ready to drop. Hesitant streams of traffic parted as they passed, but merde there was no sign of him. In the window of a nearby pâtisserie, birthday cakes, babas au rhum and petit-fours surrounded a sumptuous wedding cake. All were so realistic few said they would have known the difference had that little sign not been there: TOUTES SONT IMITATIONS. ALLES NUR ATTRAPPEN, all sham. Papier-mâché, paint and endless hours of devotion to remind everyone of what could no longer be purchased.

Frans could just be seen behind a cart that was loaded with firewood twigs at which two tethered goats were nibbling. The couple with the tandem bike were selling the milk. Everyone in the line-up had their own container. Timidly some four- and five-year-olds were attempting to pet the goats, Frans having just fed one the last of his cigarette.

At the Gare de l’Est she again paused but wouldn’t look back. To her left and west, on the original facade, were the statues of Strasbourg; to her right, on the newer wing, those of Verdun. Two wars, this quartier very much of Alsacians and Lorraines.

Heading to the Arrivée, mingling with the crowd who were hurrying to get home or to wherever else they were going in Paris­, she walked the bike among the baggage handlers whose two-wheeled carts leaned this way and that awaiting customers.

Frans would know she hadn’t a lock for the bike but what he wouldn’t know is that she had something else.

Grâce à Dieu, those dark, oft-questioning eyes swept over her, she softly saying, ‘Félix, un mouchard, le Buffet de la Gare, un pistolet, le Browning neuf millimètre.’

Leaving the bike, she hurried into the station.

Street by street, courtyard by courtyard, sewer by sewer and under­ground tunnel or cavern, the avenue Foch’s map of Paris and its suburbs wasn’t just impressive. It was, St-Cyr had to admit, as Hermann­ would, a terrible shock and damning indictment. Every­thing noted was, of course, in Deutsch and quite obviously the gestapistes français and others, including the PPF, had been busy supplying the Occupier with the necessary.

‘Well, where then?’ demanded Kleiber, having spread the map over the still warm hood of his tourer.

‘Another courtyard, Colonel,’ said Louis, ‘but I have absolutely no idea which. Any of a few hundred would compare with what we have just visited. Paris is Paris—tell him, Hermann. No matter where he looks, its history has to be navigated. This street, this rue de la Goutte-d’Or is that of the golden droplet. Wine, you understand. White wine but so famous in the 1500s, its name has stuck. Look uphill. Look up this very street. What is it that you see, and please don’t tell me it’s just the basilica. Oh, for sure, humility caused us to build that huge white encrustation in the years after the Franco-Prussian War we lost, but for the history you really need, you must go back further. Gradually those little farms, monasteries and vineyards became what we now see of the Louis-Philippe era from 1830 to 1848. Each house is of five storeys. All don’t just face the street behind closed blinds and curtains but line up to the very pavement. Intermittent courtyards, however, are relics of the once deep gardens that led to the stables behind and to places for the help, and with, perhaps, a few back rooms to rent so as to ease the budget. But then … why then, the times changed, and many of the houses became tenements, the flats smaller and smaller, while the courtyards were flanked by one- and two-storey ateliers. Coffin makers, funeral directors, photographers, print shops, ironworkers, et cetera, et cetera, off which all-but-hidden staircases lead to the concierge’s loge and finally to those flats, yet still in districts like this, the citizens cling to their original dialect and village closeness. She could be anywhere, so if you would be so kind, please begin by telling us what you and Kriminalrat Ludin know not only of her but of those others we are supposed to be finding for you in top secret.’

Grâce à Dieu, and good for Louis.

‘Ask a Frenchman, Kohler, and right away he has reasons beyond reasons for even the most simple of things. Heinrich, mein Lieber, having chosen him yourself, you will know far more than myself about this Spitzel of yours, Frans Oenen—Paul Klemper. Start with him while I have a look at those “villagers” who have been rounded up.’

The Buffet de la Gare was simply that: thin soup for herself, thought Frans, because she didn’t have her ration tickets and papers. No salt either, nor even the usual ‘ashtray’ of powdered saccharine for the acorn water that passed as ‘coffee.’

Though she was at his mercy and it felt good, he would still go carefully. Feldgendarme, looking for deserters, were grousing about, as were plain-clothed Gestapo, though after others, flics, too, and gestapistes-français types.

Lots of other French were about, but she had deliberately chosen to sit near a group of German officers. Spooning her soup, blowing gently on it, she was watching him approach her table, but a Hauptmann got up to ask if she would like his slices of the grey national, and with margarine too.

Managing surprise and a grateful smile, she said, ‘Dank, Herr Offizier, that is most kind of you.’

‘Sprechen Sei Deutsch, Fräulein?’ he asked in surprise, pleased by it too.

‘Deutsch lernen, mein Herr. I’m taking classes through the Deutsches Institut.’

‘Ach, das ist keine Kunst, Fräulein. Viel Glück!’ There’s nothing to it. Good luck!

‘Und gleichfalls,’ she said. And likewise with yourselves. The Hauptmann even bowed.

Breaking the bread, she dropped pieces into the soup but never for a moment looked down at that bowl and spoon, for now she knew for sure she hadn’t managed to escape. Still, he’d play it as if having come upon her unexpectedly, thought Oenen, and leaning over her and the table as a lover would, put his arms about her for the embrace of embraces. ‘You left us in such a hurry, Étienne insisted I come after you, but are we to call you Annette-Mélanie Veroche of the Salle Pleyel and from Rethel, was it, or is it still to be Anna-Marie Vermeulen?’

His lips had been dry, his fingers cold, he now taking a chair facing her, so there was no other solution. She would have to appear as if having given up, have to appear as if putting herself right into his hands. ‘Please tell me what you want.’

She wasn’t even trembling and should have been, felt Oenen, but he would smile again as a lover would and confide, ‘Not to see you lying naked on the floor in the cellars of the rue des Saussaies.’

Gestapo and Sûreté headquarters and being hosed off. ‘Or in those of what was once a lovely public school on the Euterpestraat?’

Where they would have taken Josef Meyerhof to finally get every last thing out of him. ‘Either way, ma chère, you haven’t a chance. No one is going to believe that you lost your papers during the Blitzkrieg when Rethel was virtually destroyed. The Moffen …’

‘The Boche, your masters.’

‘Won’t go looking for tombstones with the Veroche name on them to verify these.’

Having hurriedly shown them to Étienne and Arie, but not necessarily the name, he had found excuse to chase after her and not have the two of them immediately go to ground in his absence. ‘Good, then you can give me back my papers and while you’re at it, that rijksdaaler.’

‘Ah, the last of my little crumbs. Would it have told my “masters” that you had somehow been delivered, do you think?’

Must he always tease? ‘Please just give me my papers and tell me what you want.’

‘Finish the soup. You’d better not waste it.’

But was he waiting for the Germans? Had he somehow managed to tell them where she was? People were glancing at them, some suspiciously, others simply with the inherent curiosity of the French. Using the last piece of bread, she would, she felt, break off a few crumbs and set them before him, then push the soup plate aside.

‘Well?’ she asked. ‘What is it you want in return for your supposed silence?’

There had been no such offer, felt Oenen, but he’d shove the papers at her and see what happened.

Immediately she checked to see that nothing was missing, but that didn’t bring the grateful sigh it should have, simply a deeper suspicion. ‘Well?’ she asked again, defiantly too.

There would be no smile. Instead he would put it to her as if he had paid for her services. ‘A share of whatever it is that they are after so badly they would order me to get it for them.’

‘And what, please, would that be?’

Stripped, she’d soon cry it out. ‘What Meyerhof told you of, the black diamonds.’

‘The “hidden” ones? Me, I simply ask because there are also those that are really black.’

How cruel of her. ‘Then those that our “friends” call black, but also those that you were given to bring to Paris for him.’

‘Josef didn’t give me anything. They would have already taken everything from him.’

‘Yet he saw that Étienne was given those louis d’or up front to make sure you got back to Paris safely?’

She must let her shoulders slump as if in defeat. ‘All right, but I’ll have to take you to them.’ Either Frans still had that coin in his pocket or he had, as they had entered Paris, slipped it to the enemy.

Feeling the rijksdaaler Ludin had let them keep, hefting it here in the rue de la Goutte-d’Or, St-Cyr felt that Queen Wilhelmina’s expression was neither gentle nor severe, but rather earnest, as if questioning the loyalty of each of her subjects. ‘But on the reverse, Kriminalrat, the initials A M V have been deliberately scratched with the point of a needle or knife.’

‘Ach, I’ve no idea why. Oenen—Klemper—probably did it to amuse. He’s like that.’

‘Yet none of the others in this top-secret envelope of yours have those same initials or any other.’

‘Verdammt, must you persist in carping?’

‘Kriminalrat, Louis only wants to know if Oenen was trustworthy.’

‘Then why didn’t he say so instead of trying to get the better of me? Klemper—Oenen—was planted with Labrie and Beekhuis last February. Klemper’s good, make no mistake. So far he has been able to tell us of three other such “packages,” all of whom are currently still under watch, as are the Hosenscheisser who are helping them.’

A situation that wouldn’t last, but those visitors from Berlin had definitely put Ludin off stride. ‘Labrie and Beekhuis can’t be allowed to feel anything’s wrong, Louis, that’s why the delays with those other “packages.”’

‘Yet we know so little of this Klemper, Hermann. Flesh him out for us, Kriminalrat.’

‘Lay him on the butcher block, is that it?’

‘Trustworthy?’ asked Hermann.

These two had found out so little, it had to mean they were hiding things even though Kohler’s women were being held hostage. Lighting another Juno, he would offer none. Coughing, choking, grabbing at his gut, the uttered gasp he gave had to be a warning, but it, too, would have to be ignored. ‘Frans Oenen—Paul Klemper—is twenty-six, though appears much younger and uses that. Trust? He has only one thought, himself. Women? you might ask. Two, three and each believing firmly they were the only one until the others he had confided in would tell them the truth. An actor since the age of fourteen. Mother twelve years older, an avant-garde violinist and teacher of music with clandestine and not-so-clandestine affairs of her own in the Hague, now ended of course. Father older than her by fifteen years and a professor of psychology, some of whose students were, of course, much younger than that wife of his. A freer couple than most, you might think. Progressive, some might have said, not myself. When son Paul, at age twelve, took it upon himself to spend the summer with Gypsies he had met at a fairground, it was the mother and then the father who let him go, only to find out exactly where he was when he finally showed up two years later.’

Scheisse! ‘Having travelled all over the Netherlands, Belgium, France and beyond, Louis, learning everything those good folk could teach him.’

‘Good, Kohler?’

‘Ach, I meant figuratively, Kriminalrat. How to shuffle cards or coins and play that guessing game where you gamble and lose. How to mimic others and even appear as if one of them, how to act but not just on stage, and how to do all the rest, including very accurately being able to instantly and correctly size people up. He’ll also know how to hide things, how to deceive, how to find angles and get himself out of difficulties, since he’ll have anticipated them before they even happen. Why such a one, Kriminalrat? Why when you must have known what he’d be like?’

‘Because we didn’t choose him; he chose the Reich. Back in October 1941, arrested and held with 483 others in the Joodsche Schouwburg awaiting transit to Westerbork, he offered his services to the SD and was so convincing, he was given a chance to prove himself. It was only after having successfully targeted several “divers” in Amsterdam and the Hague, that he was then infiltrated into Labrie and Beekhuis’s service, and that is why, later still, Standartenführer Kleiber, chose to use him for our purposes. His choice, I must add, not my own.’

‘Ach, Heinrich … Heinrich, mein Lieber,’ interjected Kleiber, hurrying to rejoin them. ‘It was yourself who did that and more recently told me that everything was in place for this Diamantensonderkommando—isn’t that korrekt? Meyerhof was desperate you said, and when he saw that girl, a former employee he knew well, since she was the daughter of his lead cutter and much respected employee, you chose to let him speak to her through the wire that shut off that ghetto, and then … ach then, deliberately let him use a non-Jew who was free and whom he trusted, to contact not only her, but Labrie and Beekhuis.’

The bastard! ‘Standartenführer, that non-Jew has since been arrested, interrogated and shot, as you well know since you yourself ordered it.’

The usual in such situations, felt Kohler, but animosities should be encouraged, for one never knew when they might be useful. ‘Which of you gave Oenen that pistol he then used to kill those two?’

‘Which of us is an accessory to murder—is this what you’re wondering?’ asked Kleiber. ‘Ach, I did. Don’t you remember, Heinrich? Oenen specified what he felt would suit, and after you had agreed, I reluctantly allowed such a weapon to be released, but only on the condition that there be one full magazine and no extra rounds.’

How comforting. ‘And the coins?’ asked Louis.

Taking a deep drag and then another before dropping the butt to the paving stones and crushing it underfoot, Ludin looked defiantly at his superior officer and said, ‘Oenen felt they would be a means of letting the Standartenführer know they had successfully gone through certain places along the route, places he knew of since Étienne Labrie had told him of the route that would be used. Oenen chose the places—prominent and easily found—and the coin recovered, but also secure. It seemed quite harmless.’

‘Harmless or not, Heinrich,’ said Kleiber, ‘it was yourself who agreed.’

‘As did yourself, Standartenführer, since the coins were, if I remember it correctly, on your desk when he told us of the route that would be used.’

The two of them must hate each other, felt St-Cyr. ‘Could that girl have scratched her initials on that coin, Kriminalrat?’

Good for Louis. So often it was the little things that counted. ‘As a means of identifying him to others, Standartenführer, assuming of course, that it would have had to have been returned to his pocket after she had scratched her initials on it.’

‘But identifying him to whom?’ asked Kleiber.

‘Having lived with the Gypsies, Standartenführer, he would have learned how to follow someone as if glued to them even though at a distance,’ said Hermann.

‘In other words,’ said Louis, ‘did that girl have help here on first arriving in Paris and does she still have that help?’

‘Banditen?’

‘FTP?’ said Hermann. ‘It’s just a thought, given the recent assassination of Dr. Julius Ritter, but if Louis and myself are to find her for you both and recover all the black and life diamonds those two from Berlin say are hidden, then it’s a question that needs to be answered.’

Flipping the coin and catching it heads up, Louis climbed into the backseat of the tourer to let this ‘Rommel’ drive while they inhaled the secondhand cigarette smoke rather than beg.

FTP, thought Ludin. Was it time to release those photos of her to others who would be more likely to find her?

To the courtyard at 3 rue Vercingétorix there was nothing, felt Anna-Marie, but the stark reality of the ordinary for a Monday morning. Everyone—the carpenter, the tinsmith, the picture-framer, the mason—watched her as she walked the bike up to the very far end, the children, too, and one old woman at the communal pump.

Lines of washing were being strung from upstairs windows, the houses of one and two stories and occasionally a ramshackle third. Pigeons’ nests, years old, still clung to narrow windowsills behind whose Second Empire railings a caged rabbit or chicken waited in hopes of nearby lettuces and herbs. Makeshift crepe paper blackout curtains still hung in some of those upper windows, and overlooking the courtyard from the rue de l’Ouest or the avenue du Maine was one of those wretched many-storeyed tenements from the 1920s and ’30s.

A lone, mange-plagued cat paused. Staircase after staircase led into the adjoining labyrinths. Even the curtain of the concierge’s loge looked as if permanently closed, the cloth having all but lost its original pink.

Plastered inside the glass were not only a pencilled, hand-drawn map of the courtyard, but a plan detailing the exact location and profession or other status of every tenant. All fifty-six of them. Étienne and Arie had been listed as ‘furniture movers.’

Watched, she was certain, she went on. It was crazy of her to have come back. Frans must have told the Occupier where this safe house was. He’d not answered when asked, had simply smiled that smile of his and had made her cry out, ‘Why? Why are you doing this?’

To which he had answered, ‘That’s for you to guess.’

Garages—old stables—and now often ateliers, were ranked side by side with their rusty, galvanized stove pipes clinging to the outer walls, cast-iron drainpipes too, and that inevitable clutter of things half-made and left, things still being made, and the desperately needed house repairs all too evident.

Ivy clung precariously to the flaking stucco above the door to the house at the far end, the curtains not moving.

‘So you came back,’ said Étienne, having stepped out of the adjacent stable, giving but a glimpse of Arie unloading things from that truck.

‘I did, yes. I had to warn you.’

Right down the length of the courtyard, from the open windows with wet laundry in fists to the ateliers, everyone watched them.

‘Warn us of what, then?’

Lame, a collie came straight to him and he paused to greet it warmly, revealing a side to him she would never have expected­. ‘Frans was going to betray you and Arie, not just myself. For all I know, he still might have, since I can’t show you the coin. It wasn’t in his pockets. He must have passed it on to someone when we went through the Porte de Versailles, but I really don’t know. How could I, having been hidden like that, in the back of yours and Arie’s truck?’

‘What coin?’

‘A rijksdaaler. He had left it on a post at that border crossing to the south of Reusel. That’s why I cut myself. I wanted to tell you. I tried to but Frans, he always anticipated every attempt and you …’

‘Wouldn’t listen.’

Not for a moment had he taken his gaze from her.

‘Leave the bike and come and meet Madame. It’s necessary.’

‘Let me speak to Arie first. Let me thank him and ask for a lock and a licence plate and registration number.’

‘Not until she’s decided.’

‘Wouldn’t it be wiser to just leave while you can? I honestly don’t know if Frans has told the Boche of this place. He may have earlier, before you and Arie even agreed to bring me.’

‘Have they photos of you?’

‘Isn’t that why Mijnheer Meyerhof insisted you agree?’

‘Apoline is necessary. No one does anything here but that she knows who they are and why they’re here.’

‘Am I to be vetted, is that what you mean, she having made a terrible mistake with Frans?’

This one dragged information out of one. ‘She has never seen him, nor does she even know of him because I never brought Frans here. While Arie and I have other safehouses, this one I have recently been keeping in reserve, having used it very safely throughout 1941 and 1942 but not since Frans joined us.’

Abruptly she sat down heavily on the stone steps, and burying her head in her hands, wept with relief, the collie immediately nuzzling her. ‘I didn’t know. I couldn’t,’ she said. ‘I thought I had to warn you even if it meant I’d be taken.’

Joining her on the steps, Labrie began to roll a cigarette, the others of the courtyard at last going back to whatever they’d been doing. ‘You risked your life to warn us and I appreciate that, as will the wife and five children I dearly love yet have to keep elsewhere until this Occupation is over and done with, but Frans, where is he now? Don’t hesitate. Just tell me since I really do have to know.’

And had just given her the reason. ‘With friends. They’ll know what to do. I’m not really one of their group. I simply find out things for them and from time to time pass that information along to my contact.’

‘FTP? An “action” équipe?’

‘I think so but really don’t know because they have never asked me to do anything like that. I am, however, well placed, as least I was. Now I don’t know what I’ll do. Take it a step at a time, I guess.’

‘Because they’ll have photos of you.’

It was Arie who brought not just a glass of water but one of cognac, and taking a place beside her, said, ‘Down a little of the first and then all of the other.’

Reaching for Étienne’s cigarette when it was passed to him, he went on to say, ‘You’re going to need to wear fingerless gloves, but those I have are already a ruin and far too big. Gauntlets as well, and of leather.’

Immediately, Beekhuis felt her head come to rest against his shoulder. ‘Madame will have seen there’s been trouble, boss. Give this one a few more minutes. No one is coming for us anyway. Not yet.’

‘Madame de Kerellec is a Breton but not, I emphasize, a separatist,’ said Étienne. ‘During the Great War, she lost her brothers, her father and the farm, and unable to keep her, the mother gave her to the sisters.’

‘Eventually she washed up here in the quartier de Plaisance,’ said Arie, ‘and just around the corner on the rue Sauvageot to work for an uncle she had never seen. He owned a crêperie but decided she could earn far more than the wages he had promised. As a prostitute, she worked that same street and others, this one too, and then like so many, took to cleaning when the customers fell off. Married by then, beaten far too many times for being disobedient among other things, she secretly turned her husband in for the particularly brutal rape of a ten-year-old tenant he had killed to silence, earning him a knife in the Santé before the widow-maker could get at him.’

‘That knife had been made from a fifteen-centimetre spike,’ said Étienne, ‘but neither the warden nor any of the guards could figure out how such a thing could ever have been brought into that prison and given to one of the husband’s cell mates. She knows what we do and that’s the way she likes it.’

‘She’s as discreet as a tombstone,’ said Arie. ‘Personally, I rather­ like her. Tough, but with a heart of gold if you can pry it open. Make friends with her canary, then talk to Madame. Try to gain a small measure of acceptance. She’s not difficult. She just likes us to think she is.’

‘We’ve been periodically dropping stuff off for her to sell ever since we started, but never with Frans.’

Who could well have followed them.

^* Hitler’s picture magazine.

^* Now the place du Portugal and the larger place du Maréchal de Lattre de Tassigny.